While the risk of explosion at a ‘scrap village’ in the northern Vietnamese province of Bac Ninh where a fatal blast occurred this week has loomed for years, local authorities are still working out a feasible way to mitigate the situation. The blast at around 4:10 am on Wednesday at a scarp warehouse in Quan Do Village, Van Mon Commune, Yen Phong District, killed two children and injured seven people. Seven nearby houses were also leveled by the explosion. Nguyen Van Tien, the owner of the facility who was arrested later the same day, claimed the explosion was caused by the seven metric tons of old bullets he had recently bought to extract scrap metal. The bullets were being stored in the warehouse yard when they triggered the blast. Quan Do has long been a notorious ‘scrap village,’ with many residents earning small fortunes from buying and reselling metal. Unfortunately, the quest for riches has led these entrepreneurs to make several questionable scrap metal purchases over the years, including used parts from missiles, tanks, and airplanes. “All of these parts have already been deactivated before being sold to us. What we have are just the damaged metallic covers,” an insider told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper in a documentary 10 years ago. But the abundant profit is also accompanied by great risk, including pollution, disease, fire, and explosion. A house is completely destroyed by the force of the explosion on January 3, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre According to Nguyen Van Ly,… [Read full story]
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